Onset

The AI named 256 Contemplating Winter is not an ambitious person. Xe can see where things are not moving efficiently — materials, people, data — and works with xer human colleague, Jin Haguen, to find solutions; buffering, balancing, and impedance-matching to alleviate the problems.

Xe thinks that the end of the world is probably beyond their capabilities....

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A romantic SF novella (~26k words) about technical debt, relationship trauma, and wanting to get on with your job in peace.